I just read a very post from Robert Puddy. I am adding a link to it below as it is the best answer I have seen to the age old question of long copy vs short copy.  Robert seems to have it down to exactly what I do when confronted by a long sales letter; so I hope it applies to the majority of other people too.  Making it very useful data

He says (quote)

We know people dont read long sales letters from start to finish…

Here is what they do (and why a good long sales letter works)

First they scan the headline and the first paragraph (so this should be your strongest reason for buying) .

 Read the rest here http://robertpuddy.com/long-sales-letter-suck/

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As well as standard SEO  techniques you may want to try this one: I will go over how a press release can help boost your search rankings and get you more traffic.

Like many Internet marketers I often neglect using press releases and if I do it, it is more as an afterthought. Perhaps it is because I have the idea that a press release needs to be newsworthy.. ie meant to announce some kind of time sensitive story. And for printed media like a newspaper this is still very much the case.

However, I have been discovering that for the Internet this is not so. Yes it still has to be newsworthy ( ie interesting to someone) but it doesn’t have to be a latest, breaking on-the-ground report. Perhaps an editorial release might be a better name for it!  Here’s my (newby) thoughts and findings on the subject…

Why Bother?

Simple. For the backlinks and the direct traffic. Remember as well you don’t want just any old back links – you want links from well established sites – sites that have been recognized as authority sites by the search engines. Many press release sites have this status. So it’s worth doing.

The reason why some press release sites work so well is because they include many high page rank sites in their distribution list. Imagine having sites like CNET, EIN News, InboxRobot, AmericanChronicle, etc. linking back to you.
 
Getting the right Press Release Site for SEO

There are several types of press release services that you will come across.

1) Free releases with no links allowed. These a press release sites allow you to submit a press release for free. But you can’t have any active links in your release. Not really worth bothering with from an SEO point of view.

2) Free releases with links allowed (but no anchor texts). Similar to the above only now you CAN have your website URL in there. Better but still not ideal for SEO where you want to have the anchor text hyperlinked.

3) Paid or free releases with links and anchor texts allowed. This is what you are after. For an affordable fee or even free, you get to publish a press release with at least 2 back links included. AND you are also allowed to choose your own anchor texts.

Press release traffic.

When you publish a press release, traffic will come to you from several ways.

1) Directly: Once your press release has been published, it will be syndicated across a wide network of news related sites. Readers who find your headline interesting will read your story and click through to visit your website.
 
2) News subscribers – A press release service will also submit your news story to news wire sites such as Google News, EIN News, Topix, NewsBlaze Daily News, and more. These wire sites already have an existing database of news subscribers. When you publish a press release, some of these subscribers will then visit your site. This is not a small deal by the way – some of these News wire sites have thousands of subscribers.

3) Search engines. This is the first SEO aspect. Your news article remains online for a long time so even after the initial traffic surge from 1 and 2 above you will still be getting traffic from the search engines that index and rank the PR release.

4) Search engines. This is the second SEO aspect. More backlinks form press releases means a better ranking in the search engines. Which means more search traffic.

How to prepare a press release

Publishing a press release on the Internet is not as hard as you might think. You may want to outsource it anyway if time is tight. But if you are planning to try it yourself here are some tips.

* Always write in third person.
* Come up with a compelling headline to attract eyeballs.
* Include one or two quotations from a person with authority in the industry.
* State facts, features and benefits clearly.
* Choose an interesting angle to write about to ensure that you publish an interesting story.
* Don’t overstuff your news article with the same keywords. Use synonyms whenever possible to ensure that the content looks natural.
* Remember to include your contact information at the end of the press release.

And lastly – if you are writing your own press release, make sure that you write in a clear and concise manner. Don’t beat about the bush. Usually, you should be able to include all key points in your press release in about 500 words. Keep the more lengthy text on your website – the interested visitor can read it there.

And – does it work?

I have released a few press items and I have to say yes. I haven’t had the fortune to be picked up by CNN (yet) so the effect has been modest. But I can see some very good high value backlinks to my site form some of the press release sites. I admit I am still a newbie at this game and will post more as I learn some of the tricks of the trade. (Or more likely, once I understand it all a bit more I will find a good outsourcer)

But as another string to your SEO bow its well worth looking into. And contact me for more affordable SEO services.

Regards
Richard Law
Web Design Australia

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Suspended First

A few weeks ago I noticed my ads on adwords were labeled as approved but not getting any impressions. I contacted adwords and was told it was a routine inspection of some sort and they were temporarily suspended

They stayed that way for weeks.

Eventually ( and several follow up emails later ) I got an email from them.

Quite an astounding email saying my campaign was suspended permanently and  (quote) “do not contact us again”

What the…. ?

I was Banned!

Apparently I was in violation of their terms and conditions. They didn’t specifically say what though.

So after much searching I found that I had actually done the wrong thing. 

My bad. They were correct. I was in violation. A warning and a chance to fix it would be nice!  Their reaction did seem a bit extreme …

After doing a search (on Google – the irony!!) I find that I am not alone.

Many advertisers are getting banned with no explanation and no recourse. Looks like Google are on a bit of a clean out – I suspect looking to get rid of the thin affiliate sites that seem to be everywhere. 

And incurring some collateral damage along the way. ( ie me )

But I can’t complain. It’s up to Google what they do with their own business

See it looks like I can’t advertise with them again – ever!  I have requested clarification on this but I won’t be holding my breath waiting for a reply.

But really it’s not anything I can do much about.  They can do what they want. Not because they are google but because it’s their business. They own google. Not me.

For example I run a web design business and in the past I have refused jobs for sites I think are unsuitable. That is my prerogative as the business owner.

So google as the business owner is perfectly within its rights to refuse my business or indeed any business it wants. They can do what they chose as long as it’s within the boundaries of the law.

I see people getting all upset and saying it’s not fair and so on. Maybe it isn’t fair. But as I said it’s their right to do what they chose.

If they don’t want your business – or mine – then get over it!  And move on.

Adwords is not the only source of traffic for me – and it should’t be for you either

Thankfully I only derive about 20% of my business from adwords anyway. It’s the people that rely on it totally that are walking the tightrope. It’s a bad business model in anyone’s book to rely on one source to the exclusion of all others. Especially if that one source is skittish like google

So even if you aren’t in Google’s bad books at the moment, if you rely on them for a large percentage of your traffic you are in trouble.  It’s time to make changes, fast!

The answer is diversify

I know it’s cold comfort if you have just been google slapped. But take it as I did .. as a wake up call.

Find more diverse and better traffic sources.  There are lot of them. Don’t be brainwashed or fooled into thinking google is the only one. Or even the best one.

At the end of the day you’ll end up with cheaper traffic, a better business model and Google will have lost some of its monopoly.

Now that’s a win-win situation.

Alternative traffic sources

As if by some weird synchronicity I recently got an email from Perry Marshal saying some of his million dollar clients have had the same thing happen to them.  Banned for no reson with no recourse.
(Makes me feel less picked on… my tiny account is insignificant to the big G anyway.)

He recommended a traffic generating course. Since I trust him and his recommendations and I have it now. And it’s very good so far.  At $200 its more than I would normally spend on an eBook by someone I don’t know. But so far it’s good

Here’s the web site  – this is not an affiliate link and I don’t get anything from sending you there

http://www.trafficevolution.com/

Buy it if you think it looks good. I did.

What I am doing now

I already had in place quite a few alternative traffic sources which I will be beefing up to make up for the loss of adwords. These are Search Engines (google, bing and yahoo), referrals, Pay-per-click ads on yahoo and bing, social network advertising and my newsletter / email marketing.

Plus I will add in some other form of paid ads to replace adwords.

What’s your strategy? If you need help with setting up any of these then contact me.

Regards
Richard Law
Web Design Australia

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An ecommerce site is distinguished from a business website by the fact that it is built around a shopping cart.

Its primary purpose it to allow people to buy on line.

Behind the scenes the software required to run such a site is a lot more involved and complex than a straight information site.  But the good news is it doesn’t have to be that much harder to build or maintain.
 
So if you have ever thought of selling on line, here’s a short checklist that will help you get started

Five Things You Will Need

1. Products
Of course you have to have something to sell!!
But what you sell online doesn’t have to be a physical product. Shopping carts can be configured to sell digital goods such as pictures, music, software, etc.
Or another option if you don’t have any inventory is to look into drop shipped products. This is where people buy from you but the order is fulfilled by a wholesaler who then delivers the product directly the customer without any further involvement from you.

2. Shopping Cart Software
There are many of these. Possibly even thousands. Some are better than others for certain purposes, some have annual license fees and some are completely free.

More important though than the license fee is the level of technical support available.

 I have built sites using 3 or 4 different shopping cart programs – and I have tested out many many more. The ones I recommend for 99% of all eCommerce sites are zencart and CS-cart. They are both easy to install, modify and have good technical support.

Plus they are fairly easy to use!

3. SSL and Dedicated IP
An SSL certificate creates the ‘https’ version of a website - you often see this on shopping carts and finance sites. This represents the fact the page is encrypted and more secure than a straight http page.

So sensitive financial data like credit card details are protected.

Thankfully you don’t need to know too much about how to install an SSL certificate just be aware that you need one. Let your web host or web designer do the rest!

4. Merchant Account and Payment Gateway
Many online stores use an online credit card processing service like PayPal or Paymate to accept payments. These work well and are widely used.

You may prefer to set up a merchant facility through your bank. If you do be aware there is usually a monthly fee involved but often you can negotiate a lower if you have a high volume of sales.

Otherwise stick with the online processors. They are almost always cheaper and every bit as secure.

5. Shipping
Ironically this can trip people up more than you might think. Getting the shipping right can be key to how competitive your prices are perceived to be.

The easiest way is to do it is to have the shopping cart software link directly to your chosen shipping company – in Australia this would most likely be Australia Post. The software tells the shipping company the weight, size, origin and destination of the item being sent and gets a shipping cost in return. This is then used in the checkout process.

Another popular way to do it if you have an inventory of smaller or lighter items is set a flat rate for all deliveries. Or even free delivery within a specified region.

Just be sure your shopping cart has enough flexibility to change between these options at will.

Putting it all together

If you are a hands-on kind of person you do it all. ie you can set up a hosting account, order and map the domain over and have the SSL certificate installed to it and then install the chosen shopping cart software.

This software will almost certainly need configuring for your desired payment gateway and shipping and probably will almost certainly need some code modifications and template modifications.

Then you will need to input of your terms and conditions, privacy statement and so on.

Finally you’ll need to set up your categories and input your products.

As you can see it’s not an overnight process and if you’re doing it for the first time it might take 60 – 80 or so hours. But it would only have cost you about $500

Or you can get a web designer like myself to do it. Just supply me with the required data and I can have it all ready for you within 3 – 4 weeks. Ready for launch. It will cost more than $500 obviously. But not that much more… especially considering it will free up 80 hours of your time!

Now you have a shopping cart: what next?

Now you’re online with your shopping cart that just the beginning. You’re going to need some good traffic to make sales.

But that’s another story for another time. Check out the various post on this blog for more info.  I will just make this shameless plug though  if you come to me for your eCommerce web design I can also do the search engine traffic generating part for you as well. So you don’t even need to worry about that - I’ll be getting your site well ranked and receiving traffic. One less thing for you to learn and worry about!!

Just contact me for a free web design quote and I’ll see what I can do for you.

regards

Richard Law
Ecommerce Web Design Australia

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Here are my top six way of gaining those much sought after one way links back to your site.   

Why bother building links at all?

Well because it has a major impact on where your site gets listed in google and the other search engines.

Links back to your site lend some authority and page rank to it and this is  likely to give your site more importance in the eyes of the google-gods.

That means higher ranking + more traffic

So here’s what you can do. Depending on your budget, skill and patience some of these will work better than others.

1. Article Submission

You can publish your own article in specialised websites strangely enough called “article directories”.

When you do this not only do you gain backlinks to your site from the directory but best of all you might find your article republished on may other blogs and sites that the article directory provides content for. ( Especially if it’s a good article or cover a hot topic… )

So one article to one directory can be seen used hundreds of different sites and consequently provide hundreds of backlinks.

In theory anyway – in practice some article directories are little more than link-farms.  Not all though. Some are very good authority sites  - but they of course have higher standards! Which means hiring a ghost writer from a third world country might not work!! Believe me I have tried….

If done correctly article submission is still a great way of building backlinks as it provides you with 100% relevant contextual backlinks that Google loves.

 2. Press Releases

This is similar in  a way to article submission only this time you submit to a “press release directory” or PR site.

Press releases however are written differently from article – think of it as a news release or news article or item of interest. As with article writing it requires a certain degree of skill to be able to write interesting news / PR releases 

Still if a good PR release gets picked up it can be used on many thousands of syndicated sites throughout the web and even in print.

 Nice!!

 3. Directory Submission

Directory submission is getting a bit long in the tooth. It used to work a lot better than it does now but still it’s an easy way to get some one-way links.

This is where you get your site listed in the appropriate category of the many online directories ( think yellow pages and you get the idea)

Given there are some cheap directory submission services around it’s probably worth doing as long as you don’t have unrealistic expectations ie don’t expect 1000 quality back links if you submit to 1000 directories.
25 – 50 might be a more realistic number.

Most directories are free to list in.

Not all.

Some of the allegedly best directories , like Yahoo Directory for example, are by paid submission only. Not always worth it for small business owners. 

4. Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking still works quite well. If your site is bookmarked on an authority and quality bookmarking site like Digg, Mixx, Propeller, etc, then this can count well for back-links and direct traffic

It can be time consuming and the temptation to get distracted is high ! But is certainly worth doing.

5. Blog Commenting

Although this is a great link building method it is also one where lots of spamming has reduced its effectiveness.

Automated programs exist for placing spam comments in thousands of blogs in just a few hours. 

That might sound good but most automated comments get rejected and most blogs are set to “no-follow” which means even if they do get posted the links back to your site are less effective

To do it right you need to work a little harder – sorry!

Do your research and find quality blogs related to your own industry and make genuine on-topic relevant comments.

Not only do your comments add value to the blogpost, you now have a greater chance of getting your comment approved and your comments have greater chance of staying on those blogposts

6. Social Media and Web 2.0 Pages

 Twitter seems to be all over the place these days. As does Facebook and the many others that male up the Social media and Web 2.0 world. Especially now that google and bing will be indexing twitter

So getting in front of a twitter audience is very important at this moment in time.

But it’s not all twitter – Some of the other authority sites are Squidoo, Hubpages, Blogger, Wordpress.com, etc.

Not all of these sites will help with direct back-links but many people use these networks. Some will visit your site and some will link to it from their own site/ blog etc. 

Automating it all

Now of of that is a lot of work. Allocate some time each week and build your links that way

There are however  a great many tools out there that automate these processes. They allow you to schedule your tweets posts for the next week  (for example) or submit your site to thousands of directories at the push of a button.

I am not saying these are wrong or that they don’t have a place in the link-building process

Just be realistic about what you expect from them.

Ideally you’d be out there building solid relationships with real web owners and real people and forging a network that way. That is the best way but it takes a lot of time.

Automating it saves some time but sacrifices some quality.

Another more real danger with automating it all is getting labeled a spammer. And then getting your site dropped from the google index.

Not exactly what you want.

Outsourcing your Link Building

This might be the easiest option for most.

Just be sure, if you are getting someone else to do your link-building make sure you have control over what they post and how they do it.

The Best Link Building Technique: Having Good Content

Okay technically this isn’t really a link building technique like the above ones.  And it often requires more work than the above 6 methods.

But it’s the one that is safest and will most likely see you through any changes in how google indexes its sites.

It is this:

Having good, quality content on your site that people want to link to out of their own free choice.

They find is useful so they link to it to tell others about it. Isn’t that what the whole linking process is supposed to be about anyway!!!

I know I said it requires more work but it doesn’t have to be hard. You can start a blog for example and post to it on a regular basis. You can regularly add new pages or new content to your site – like product reviews of industry news – that people will want to know about.

Indeed the above 6 points will be relatively ineffective if you don’t do this point. Sorry!

Let me help.

If you want help with your link building or SEO projects then contact me for an affordable SEO service .

If you don’t have a website yet then that is even better - we can do the above as part of the web design project because then we can get it right from day 1. Contact me for a free web design quote.

And finally if you want to read some more about what makes for a successful website I’d recommend this eBook. It’s free. Plus I know the author well (it’s me). It’s called Web Designer Secrets

regards

Richard Law
Web Designer offering Cheap Web Design Australia

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Hi and welcome to the  very last post relating to my eBook “Web Designer Secrets” – I hope you have found them useful.  If you haven’t go a copy of the Ebook yet (!) you can download a copy free by clicking on the image to the right.

The most important factor in a web design project

As a web designer I deal with the nuts and bolts of the website. The layout, the structure , the coding and the graphics and getting it raked well in the search engines.

These are all important. But there is a more important thing that need to be worked on first, and not by me.  By you. the business owner.

The most important thing in a web design project is not its navigation, its domain name, or even what it says.

It is purpose. Is there a clear purpose and reason behind the website?

Or put it another way- what is it supposed to do or achieve?

Having a goal makes everything else align and flow

Having an end-goal in mind for your website will serve to guide and focus all other efforts relating to the site. From the navigation, to the design and what it says. These will all align well and work together best if there is a clearly visualised and named product for the website as a whole.

Now you don’t need to be all esoteric or mystical about it though. In fact the more precise and practical you are the better it is.

Given that your website is to be a business tool it is most probablyyou will want it to either

1. Increase number of inquiries for your services or products
or
2. Sell more services and products directly
or
3. Keep current customers informed to improve customer relations

Now those are very generalised and would be more specifically defined for your business. But you get the idea…

Build towards achieving the expected end result and save time and money

Once you have the goal – you should build your website (or have it built) with that goal in mind

Doing this help you decide what you do and what you don’t need. It also tells you whether you need a checkout facility/ shopping cart site (an ecommerce website) or simply an information site with a contact form (what I call a small business website) . It tells you whether you need state-of-the-art graphics, interactive flash animations or simply a page of informative text.

It helps you focus on the important issues and discard the unimportant

Example from a web designer (me) point of view

As a web designer I always strive to provide my customers with a website that suits their specifications.

Sometimes these specifications need a bit of adjusting! By this I mean they ask for things that will be detrimental to their sites performance

A few months ago I was paid a deposit to build a new small business website to replace a very old HTML site that wasn’t optimized and wasn’t ranking well as a result. It had many broken links and used frames.
In other words it was a mess!!

I proposed a fast loading site build on a content management system ( so the owner could update it when she wanted)  and a much faster / lighter image gallery placed deeper in the site so as not to impact on the ranking as much. I also proposed full optimisation and back-link building.

In other words I proposed a site that would load well, was easy to navigate which would ranking well in the search engines. That is what she asked for after all!

BUT… the as soon as we started the customer said she also wanted a flash intro page with a 1-2 minute flash animation. Plsu she wanted the “home page” to contain only images (no text) and she also proposed a complex navigation and an unusual font that few browsers support.

I couldn’t convince her that doing these things would lose her 25% of her customers before they even got to the home page; would massively impact on the site load time; and would severely impede any search engine optimisation. Believe me I tried.

Eventually I gave her the deposit back and told her I couldn’t help her. The site she asked for would not meet the goal she had set.

Maybe in my earlier days I would have built what was asked for. But not now.  I know what she was insisting on would not work. It would not be much better than the site she was replacing in actual fact.  And I know that customer would also blame me for this. And to a degree she would be right to do so.

So the moral to the story is know what you want the site to do,  have an idea of what is required for this to happen and be willing to be guided by someone who knows what they are talking about.

Example from a customers point of view

When my daughter got married my wife – who is not normally much for the internet – spent many hours surfing for mother-of-the-bride outfits and wedding related items.

This is what she said to me – and these comments are so typical of your everyday internet user.

She told me that if  a site took too long to load she’d leave and go elsewhere. If she couldn’t easily see how to get to the information she wanted she would leave and go elsewhere.
If the site didn’t have the data she needed to know (eg price, locations, how to order) she would leave and go elsewhere

Get the point?

Build your site to suit your customer and your strategy (goal). Not your ego.

Saving Money and Time

If you do this you’ll find your development costs will probably go down!!  And so will the costs.

You’ll be working to make the site as SIMPLE as possible for your customers.

And your conversions and sales  (or inquiries) will be good as a result

And interestingly enough google will probably like your site better as well.

Why Cheap Web Design can be just as good

In my eBook I suggest a simple way to build a website based on wordpress for very little cost. For some people this will suit their purpose just fine. For others it wont.

For those who need something more don’t despair. Web design doesn’t have to be expensive. It doesn’t need to cost tens of thousands of dollars. A few thousand at the most I’d say!!  That’s all I charge – and often much less. And I must say my sites work pretty well on the whole.

So here’s an unashamed plug for me

If you really want to know how much it will cost to get a website built then get a free web design quote from me.

And by all means shop around as well if you wish.

I know my prices are very competitive but not as low as some.  

However I bring with me a wealth of experience I am happy to share with my customers and a knowledge base broader than just how to code a website
I know how to make a website work as a business tool.

Some of this information you will find in my eBook “Web Designer Secrets”, some you’ll find here in my blog and some of which is still in my head

Hope to hear from your soon.

regards

Richard Law

Cheap Web Design Australia

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Hi and welcome to the second last post relating to my eBook “Web Designer Secrets” – you can download a copy free by clicking on the image to the right.

How to Use Social Networks for Traffic.

So far I have I have covered using SEO services and other Internet marketing methods to get traffic to your site. I also examined blogging.

Another potentially good source is social networking.

Currently facebook and twitter seem to be the main ones, but there are many others social network and bookmarking sites around.

These might not work for everyone but as a source of cheap traffic they are certainly worth looking at.

Social networks = mindless chatter

I must admit that until recently I have ignored these social networks. It seemed to me they were nothing but mindless chatter. I wasn’t really at all interested what someone I don’t know had for breakfast. Or what their favorite TV is.

However I have kept one eye on them since they do have a huge number of users. This means a great marketing opportunity is there to be tapped into – somehow. 

Changes in The Social Networks

And sure enough as these networks have matured there has emerged more effective ways of using them. Plus some very interesting changes ….

Specifically

1. Recent announcements from  google that they plan to introduce feeds from twitter into search results. And from bing that they plan to introduce feeds from both twitter and facebook in their search results.
This is a big deal!!!!

2. A number of improvements in both twitter and facebook that now make using them much easier; including the new twitter lists

3. And finally the anticipated change in 2010 when bing starts providing yahoo search results (if it ever happens). See point 1 above to understand why this is relevant.

My Social Networking Experiment

So a few months ago I set about getting an active  profile in these two networks  (twitter and facebook) and a few others as well.

I did this to see if I could use some of the massive traffic these networks get and to see if I could leverage my social network pages to help my website

So far the results have been good. Very good.

Infact so far the sign up rate for my free eBook is highest with traffic from twitter than any other source.

Whether that translates into more prospects is yet to be seen. But the cost per acquisition is certainly very low.

How to Be “All Business” in a Social network

My strategy was simple.

1. Given a social networks is “social” – ie not primarily intended for business promo or sales pitches. ( Even though you see them a lot.)  You don’t want to come over like the family member of friend who has just discovered MLM(been there, done that!)

2. Post and provide useful / free data which will appeal to my target audience. Keep the focus on filling a need.

3. These teaser posts lead the person to my blog or website where I provide the data promised and ask them to sign up for my newsletter. Notice- no hardsell!  

4. I also offer my free eBook to anyone who follows me on twitter.

5. Those that do sign up I can now build a proper business relationship with through email marketing

So you see I use my blog and eBook as a filter to build a marketing list of prospects. 

Vague Marketing

Now the goal driven people reading this might thing it sounds a bit vague and hard to quantify. No exact ROI and cost per conversion.

They’d be right

Which is why I don’t spend a great deal of my time on social networking activities. I have automated some of it and keep the focus clear and simple.

I avoid (usually) getting involved in the many otehr interesing distractions these networks can offer.

And as my experience and results grow I can refine my posts and offers further.

What you should do: a mini-plan

1. Minimally set up a facebook page and a facebook fan page. You can feed it the RSS from your blog to keep is fresh if you don’t think you’ll have time to grow it.

2. Set up a twitter account and maybe have a set of 40 or so key tweets you’d like to send out which relate to something on your site or blog. There are many free automated tools that let you do that. Use my strategy detailed above as a guide if you like.

3. Monitor your stats and if it works for you, great.  If this is the case as / if time permits you should also look to join up with other networks such as LinkedIn, set up a squidoo lens and join digg and delicious etc

4. Until you can see solid returns only allocate an hour or so each week to this kind of marketing.  

And if you just don’t have the time or need some help to do all this consider outsourcing it, ie  contact me!

Having been through it all myself now I have the skills and tools in place to do it for you as part of my SEO services  or Internet marketing services

regards

Richard Law
Cheap Web Design Australia

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Hi and welcome to another post relating to my eBook “Web Designer Secrets” – you can download a copy free by clicking on the image to the right.

Blogging for traffic.  

In earlier posts I looked at using  SEO services and other Internet marketing methods to get traffic to your site.

There is one technique I mentioned that works very well, is easy to set up and cheap. Blogging

A blog can increase the traffic to your site and can directly or indirectly increase sales and inquiries. Since its such a useful tool I though a bit more information might be helpful..

So… here’s some of the ways a blog in addition to a website can help re-enforce your business

Six ways that a blog can help you

1. A blog often appeals to a different audience
A blog is less formal and more informative (usually) and more geared towards social interaction than a website. As such you will often find it reaches an audience that might not have heard of you otherwise.

2. A blog has interactive and repeat appeal
Because you can usually leave a comment on a blog a visitor can become part of the part of the blog . As such it is a more personal experience than simply reading someones web page. This, plus the fact that blogs tend to be updated more often, makes for more return traffic.

3. A blog has RSS Feeds
Any blog worth having will allow people to subscribe easily to it’s RSS feed. If you don’t know what that is -  it’s  a way of alerting them of new posts on your blog without having to email them. You can also share you blog posts with other blogs and social networks through the use of RSS feeds

4. Blog Links for more traffic and better ranking
A blog is a great way to attract links from like-minded authoritative sites. And as your blog grows don’t forget the “link-juice” power of the internal links from your site also grows.

So your blog can act as a buoyancy cushion to help push your website up the rankings.

5. A blog helps with building trust
As I have written before one of the main barriers to buying is trust. People don’t know who you are. A blog is a good way to open up to your prospects and let them get to know you and in the process gain some trust.

6. Blogs make it easier to build a network
Through discussion, interaction and comments, you can build a sense of community around your blog. Interacting with other blog owners helps here as well, as this builds a network of which you are a major contributor.

As mentioned above blogs also interface very well with social networks such as twitter, facebook and so on via RSS. So you can redirect some of the huge traffic from these social networks to your blog and from your blog to your website.

Okay I know I said six ways – but here’s a seventh….

7. Blogs are very inexpensive
Wordpress is probably the best known blog software and it’s availble for download free.  Of course you’ll probably still need hosting and a domain name.

Wordpress can be added to with many useful modules and themes- the majority of which are once again free.

So blogging is not expensive money-wise. It is expensive time-wise though in that it need regular updates to make it worthwhile

I cover how you can even set up an inexpensive website using blog software in my eBook Web Designer Secrets. If you want some help with this you can contact me

If funds are really really tight you can even set up a free blog on one of the many networks like blogger. This would only work for a personal or informal site and not really as a buisness blog though …

A  blog can help your website and your business and get you more traffic form areas you wouldn’t reach and other way.  It can even be fun as well.

Give it a try

And if you need some web design help , contact me for a free web design quote.

regards

Richard Law
Cheap Web Design Australia

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If you want to try the google content network you should know something – it’s a very different creature from search, Infact if you’re using the same ad on both the search and the content network you’ve probably got it wrong.

Drop over to PerryMarshall.com for some Free Training on Placement Targeting and the Google Content Network.

http://www.perrymarshall.com/content-network-training-with-shelley/

regards
Richard Law
Web Design Australia

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Hi and welcome to another post relating to my eBook “Web Designer Secrets” – you can download a copy free by clicking on the image to the right.

Internet Marketing is more than SEO

Last post I looked a SEO services and how getting a high rank in google is a goal worth pursuing even though it might seem a bit daunting.

However if getting a high rank in the various search engines is the only marketing you do then your are in big trouble.

You need more than one internet marketing strategy

It doesn’t take much for the search engines to change their search algorithms and send your high ranking site into oblivion. There goes your traffic, and soon after there goes your business

I strongly advise having three or more good reliable sources of traffic each one of which can supply enough business on its own to support you

Search engines can be one of them, indeed it should be one of them as it does connect you to a very large pool of prospects

Some others could be

Paid Advertising

Paid advertising: google has its pay-per-click network called adwords which can be very effective if done right. (very expensive if done wrong). There’s a fair bit on this blog about using adwords as well as links to some very good resources.

I use adwords a lot

But adwords isn’t the only paid advertising around.

There are sponsored ads in email newsletters, banner ads and exchanges, and more. There are lots out there. Some more effective than others. Some more expensive that others.

( Currently I am investigating PPV or CPV advertising (pay per view or cost per view) as an alternative to adwords. It promises to be very cheap but I am not sure of the quality yet )

At the end of the day it is cost per conversion that is the deciding factor.

Social networks

Do you twitter? Do you have a facebook account? Or Digg or Squidoo? If not then you should. These social networks and their many peers have a massive amount of traffic and users.

You need to make sure you are part of it.

A word of caution though: don’t hit these social networks with a heavy sales pitch. That’s a bit like being the friend who is always trying to sell you on multi-level marketing. Intrusive and annoying!! 

So remember it is a social  network. Make your posts useful and helpful and direct people to your site or your blog – then they can be sold further

Another good thing getting this traffic -  it doesn’t rely on having a high ranking website

Blogging

Having a blog is a great way to contact people that might otherwise never know of your existence.

Because a blog is les formal and more interactive than a web site it is the perfect place to build trust and a network of like minded people. 

Again getting this traffic doesn’t rely on having a high ranking website; blogs have their own network and directories.

This is such a vital thing to do I will post a separate blog-post about it next

Email marketing

The majority of people who visit your site or your blog will leave having done nothing.

You’ve just spent your money or your time or both to get them their so you need to make the most of the traffic you get

The easiest way by far is email marketing. Simply encourage people to sign up for a newsletter or a free gift or something in exchange for their name and email address.

Now you have a way to continue to talk to them. You can email them.

You can use an automated auto-responders to send these visitors a series of messages over a period of time.

Some will become customers. Customers you would not have had otherwise if their one website visit was their only interaction with you.

Again this marketing methods works even if you’re on page 10 of google.

Traditional Methods

 And let’s not forget more traditional methods.

How about asking existing customers for referrals; and maybe even rewarding them for sending new people to you.  (As in an affiliate program)

How about traditional ads in your local paper – don’t forget to include your web address!!

Or how about networking nights, letterbox drops, telemarketing, and so on.

The point is there are so many ways to drive traffic to your site. You should have more than one !

A Word of Caution

You could sit down, name out a dozen ways to get traffic to your site and then go about trying to do all of them.

This would probably be  a big mistake.

It takes time to learn how to get good at each method and what message each audience will respond best to.

If you spread yourself too thin you’ll never give yourself the chance to get good enough any of them.

I suggest 3 is a good number. Pick 3 methods and get very good at them. Then if time permits add on another, one at a time. Eventually you’ll need to hire a marketing division to do it all for you.

As mentioned above I’ll cover blogging next post

A blog (along with SEO) is probably one of the most obvious traffic methods you should add to your strategy – and it’s cheap and easy too.

If you want some help have a look at my Internet Marketing Australia  page on my website and then contact me

regards

Richard Law
The Web Design Specialist
Cheap Web Design| Web Design Australia

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If you don’t already have a copy of  my free ebook ” Web Designer Secrets”. click on the book image to the right to get it now.

Search Engine Optimisation

I had a phone call recently from someone looking for a web design quote. He told me that he had spoken to several people about web design and specifically Search Engine Optimisation and they all told him a different story.
 
He wanted to know why that was.
 
That struck me as being so important I thought it was worth passing on.

SEO is not an Exact Subject

See search engine optimisation (SEO) isn’t an exact science.
 
The search engines look at various criteria when assessing a site and working out where it should be placed, but no-one outside of the search engines themselves knows everything they look at and how they are all weighted in terms of importance.
 
And each search engine does it differently.
 
And just for good measure they all update and revise their criteria and weighting regularly
 
That makes it very complicated because you have a lot of missing information
 
And with that much missing information it’s not surprising that a whole bunch on mis-information springs up in its place.

Black hat Seo or White Hat SEO

There are those whose mission is to trick the search engines into giving them a high ranking. These people are one of the reasons that the search engines revise and update their criteria on a regular basis. This is sometimes called black hat SEO. Using questionable techniques black hat SEO can result in spectacular but short term results. Long term it often gets your site banned or demoted to page 100!  It is the search engine equivalent to spamming.
 
White hat SEO tries to help the search engines rather than trick them. It does this by aligning  with the purpose and the needs of the search engine. Giving them the data they need about your site in a way that they can use it.
 
That’s what I do with the SEO services I offer – and I suggest you do it to. Work with the search engine, not against it as much, as you can. It will be to your benefit in the long haul.

What does a search engine want?

A search engine like google wants to give its searchers a list of quality sites that relate to the search phrase they just typed in. It wants to answer their query or question as quickly and easily as it can.

• They don’t want to present the person with sites that claim to be about what they are looking for but aren’t
• They don’t want to present searchers with a site that is all adword ads and very little useful content
• They don’t want to present searchers with a site that makes them jump through hoops before telling them what they want to know. (eg sites with a flash splash pages or complicated navigation)

They don’t want this because the person doing the search sure as hell doesn’t want it

And so we come to the essence of SEO.

SEO is about making your site useful to the searcher.

It’s not about tricking anyone.

Making your site people friendly is making is SEO friendly

Your site will gain favour with the search engines if it is well written, well titled, has a good easy to navigate structure and is based around a well defined central theme or topic ( usually your services or products).
 
You will also gain favour with the search engines if your site is linked to by other like-minded sites that backup and re-enforce this central theme
 
That’s not so complicated is it!!

How to SEO your site.

The above is what I do when I optimise a site. It’s not sexy, its not rocket science or magic. Indeed can be rather mundane at times.
 
How do I do it?

It involves doing proper research into what people are looking for, it involves structural alterations to make the message of the site more obvious to both human and search engine visitors alike. It involved gathering relevant backlinks from respected sources.
 
And it involves patience and monitoring
 
I wont go into the specifics or this would be the world’s longest blog post. I use various free online tools like Google Keyword Tool and other commercial software tools that I have bought. I detail the process a bit more thoroughly in the affordable SEO services page on my website

Once you have the basics in THEN looks for advanced strategies

If you do the above then your site will have its basics in place.
Indeed 80% of any SEO is just that – getting the basics in place.
 
And thankfully these are the things that don’t change much.
 
But if it’s a very competitive field then you will need the tricky last 20% – advanced SEO techniques. Ironically it’s often much more involved and harder to do this last 20% than the preceding 80%
 
And this is when you need the people with their finger on the pulse. The top experts who know to the minute details what each search engine is looking for and how to give it to them.
 
But get your basics in first!
 
As a web designer getting the fundamental SEO basics in on a site is something I can do easily. As I said it’s not rocket science just structured research and changes made over a period of time.
 
Often that’s all you need
 
But if that last 20% is required I am happy to hand it over to those who know better. Of course by that time the site the site should be getting so much targetted traffic that you can afford them.
 
Anyway that’s it for tip 4: hope it helped

Richard Law
Web Design Specialist
Cheap Web Design | Get a free Web Design Quote Here

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If you’re here then hopefully it’s because you read my free ebook ” Web Designer Secrets”. If not you can download it by clicking on the book image to the right.

Using Graphics In your Website

Now from a search engine point of view images are not very important in a website. This is because the various programs (bots or spiders as they are called) that scan through your site to determine what it’s about, can only “see” text.

Images are virtually invisible to the search engines

This should tell you immediately that sites that are 100% FLASH are hard to get ranked in the search engines ( which is one of the reasons why I don’t do them)

However …  from a (human) web user point of view good, well placed images or graphics can make a site much easier to understand and give it greater visual appeal.  So they ARE important.

A balance is needed. I tend to advise that images and graphics only be used if they add to the overall message or theme of the site.

Graphics Slow your Site down

Yes it’s true. When someone opens up your site the main things that determines how quickly it is dislayed is the graphics/ images on the site.  Too many images and / or too large an image file and it loads very slowly.

And if they are still on dial up internet – you’ll probably lose them before the page fully loads

So when you’re using images on a website use them sparingly and optimise them for the web

How to optimise an image for the web

When you take a picture from a digital camera it produces a file with sufficient information in it to allow you to print it. Typically you might print it at 300 or 600 dpi (dots per inch) and typically the image file might be 1 – 3 megs in size.

Add a few of these 3 meg images to your website and it will be painfully slow to load.

Fortunately you dont need the same level of detail to show the image on the monitor screen. A density of 75-100 dpi is sufficient to give a good quality image on a monitor.  And it gives a filesize that is 60-80% smaller.

This means faster to load

Another thing you can do is reduce the physical dimensions of the image to closer match the actual dimensions you will be using on the website. So an image might originally be  2000 pixels wide but you only it to be 600 pixels wide on your site.  Shrink the image to be 600px wide before you upload it – and once again the filesize is much smaller.

Finally the format of the image file is important. Without going into too much detail save your web images as jpegs or possibly gifs. A jpeg is a compressed format  so one again you get to shave something off the image filesize.

To sum up, never load images onto your website directly from your camera of scanner or even from another website without checking the filesize and adjusting the image dimensions and image format

This will make for smaller files that load faster.

How to make your images web friendly

So how do you make the images you have “web friendly”?

You need to use another program – you need graphics processing software.

There are many graphics software packages. Some are very advanced and expensive, like photoshop. Some are free. Most will do the above optimisation process easily.

I personally use several different software programs I have bought over the years. But if  all you need to do is make your images web friendly then you could try one of the many free graphics programs around. 

One that I have heard is good is called  Faststone( http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm) .

I haven’t used it myself though – since I paid for software I have to use that to justify the cost !

By the way this whole thing about larger image files taking a long time to load is another reason to avoid pure flash sites. They are slow to load!!

Summary

Make sure any images you use on your website have been prepared for web use-  ie optimised to load as quickly as possible.  You’ll have happier visitors if you do.

If you’re website has been designed properly the you should be able to easily upload these optimised images directly from the admin area. Assuming your site is built on a content management system of course. (see previous tip or web designer secrets ebookfor more details about CMSes)

Anyway that’s it for tip 3: hope it helped

regards

Richard Law
Cheap Web Design
Get a free Web Design Quote Here

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If you’re here then hopefully it’s because you read my free ebook “Web Designer Secrets”. If not you can download it by clicking on the book image to the right.

Manage your own website the easy way

Ideally a website should be set up so that it can be easily updated anytime by its owner (you) without having to rely or pay someone else to do it ( a web designer like me!)

This is done using what is called a Content Management System or CMS. In the long run it will save you a lot of money. And will also make your web designers life easier too as they can work on the bigger projects and functions of your site.

So when you’re getting a web site built make sure you can update it yourself.

Picking a CMS

There are dozens if not hundreds of CMS options out there.

Getting the wrong one means you’re stuck with a complicated admin interface – which kind of defeats the purpose of having it. 

The problem is few CMS programs are built with the end user of a new website owner in mind ; more seem to be built with the web designer in mind. As such they contain a lot of features that are not required by the average user.

Typically each web designer has their favourite CMS and tends to specialise in that one. I know I do.

The CMS That I Use

When choosing which CMS software I would use for my business web design projects my over-riding criteria was it had to be easy for a non-technical person to use.   I looked to the various CMS systems and spend many hours investigating over a dozen of the main ones.

Some were way too complicated – even for me.
And few of them had much documentation to speak of.
And I looked at them all – Joomla, Mambo, Drupla, ZOOP, and so on.

I eventually found a CMS that was everything I wanted.  Easy to use and easy for me to modify and update. It  only had half the features of a monster application like MAMBO which was fine by me – it made it easier to teach people how to use it.

And I have been using it for over 3 years now with no complaints or problems. I have built hundreds of sites using this CMS and nearly everyone has been able to pick up how to use it within a few weeks.

The CMS is called Web Site Baker and you can see some of the sites I have built using it in my web design portfolio

Summary

For most business websites it makes sense to have an easy way to update your website. And it also makes sense that you should be able to do it yourself.  That’s what a CMS system allows you to do and it’s what I offer all my small business website customers.

Anyway that’s it for tip 2: hope it helped

regards

Richard Law
Cheap Web Design
Get a free Web Design Quote Here

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In my ebook Web Designer Secrets I mentioned that picking a domain name that is relevant to your business is important

What name to choose

Many people decide to register a domain name that corresponds to their business name, and you should certainly do that. So if your company name is ABC and Sons you register abcsons.com.au  (say) – makes sense right? Even if it’s only to protect your business name this is worth doing.

But…

Do a google search for anything and look at the result listings. The word or words you used in the search are highlighted where ever they appear – they are bold. Notice that?

So if our mythical ABC and Sons are , say, solicitors then a better domain name for them would be ABCsolicitors.com.au. A better one still would be SolictorsMelbourne.com.au – provided they are located in Melbourne of course

Why your domain name matters

Why is this important anyway? Two reasons..

1. Because the search words used which are also in your domain name are would highlighted. This is a chance to draw more attention to your listing. And a better chance of catching the attention of the person doing the search as they scan the results page.

2. It MAY have some influence in the ranking of the site. It certainly makes it clearer what the site is about. I have no clear cut proof to say it does but it would make sense..

As with all things keep it sensible. It using your main keywords means a domain name that is too long then compromise is required

Register more than one domain- carefully

You can also register more than one domain name and point them all to the same site.

So ABCsons.com.au and MelbourneSolicitors.com.au both lead to the website for ABC and Sons.

But a word of caution here – pick oneas your main domain and redirect the others to it using 301 permanent redirects. Otherwise google will see them as duplicate sites and duplicate content. Google doesn’t like duplicate content!

If that last paragraph didn’t make any sense to you then best to get your web designer to do it for you.

How much should I pay for a domain

If you want to DIY it you can get a com.au domain for about $40 for 2 years. Expect to pay a little more if you want your web designer to do it for you. This is often worth it as once you have a domain name you need to set it to point to the server where your site is located.  The web designer can do this for you without you worrying about nameservers, passwords or any such thing.

Things to watch out for

1. Paying too much! Some domain registration companies charge $140 for a com.au domain for 2 years! Far too expensive
2. Make sure you have access to the domain even though you might never need it. If you get someone else to register the domain on your behalf be sure and get the access details (username and password). You might need to move servers someday and you’ll need to access the domain name and update it when you do. If you don’t have access to the domain name then you have to jump through a few hoops before the domain registrar will let you access it.

Anyway that’s it for tip 1: hope it helped

regards

Richard Law
Affordable Web Design
Get a free Web Design Quote Here

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Well after months of bit-and-piece work I have finally finished writing my first eBook

It’s called “Web Designer Secrets” and it is intended to help small business owners everywhere who do not yet have a web site (you know who your are!). Specifically help them to find their way through what can be a very confusing and expensive process. The aim is to save money and time and headaches by making it all a bit easier to understand!

It’s written from the view point of a business owner, not a web designer. As such it covers vital thinks like how to get your site listed in the search engines, which function and features your site must have (and which ones are a waste of money) and how much you should expect to pay for it all. 

I even show a way you can build a simple but professional site for just a few hundred dollars

There’s no cost for the eBook. Just go and sign up for it here

Web Design Secrets

And let me know what you think of it.

regards

Richard Law
Affordable Web Designing Services, Australia

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Search engine optimization (SEO) is actually many techniques or processes all designed to help your site rank well in the search engine results. Ideally on page 1 position 1.

These processes involve adjusting various parts of the site (in terms of code, content and links) to hopefully gain a higher position and so increase traffic. Generally all SEO concentrates on the big 3 search engines ie Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

What Do These Search Engines Look For?

The Search engines use a computer programs called “bots,” or “spiders”. These bots follow links through the internet and record what they find at each web page. This data is later assesses and the resultant webpage results generated.
Each search engine assess these pages in a different way. Hence why the top ten results for any given search are not the same in each search engine. This can make life complicated as it’s hard to perfectly optimise for all 3. Fortunately they have more in common than they do different so it’s not quite as bad as it sounds.

All the search engines look at a web page it has just spidered and assess it in terms of

Relevance: what’s the site about and does the actual content of the site relate to its title or headings of the content and HTML tags.

Popularity: importance is measured by the number of times other sites link back to it – called backlinks. But it’s not just number of backlinks it’s also who they are from. When they come from a highly respected and relevant site, they carry more weight. This tells you links from a (say) gambling site back to a (say) CD site are of little value.

Five Simple Steps to Boost your Site Ranking

Because of the changing nature of search engines SEO is complicated. But there are five basic things that should be done with any site regardless. Things that will boost the ranking of just about any site.

1) Use Good, Unique Content in Your Site

Search engines want to provide their search queries with quality results. So make your site informative and useful and they will like your site more than a site that’s thin on the data. Update the content frequently as well. A good way to do this is add a blog and post to it regularly

2) Research and use Keywords Correctly

Don’t just aim for the most generic high volume keyword relating to your site. Do proper keyword research and work out what your prospective customers are really typing in. Optimise around these phrases by using them in your page titles, headings and text. But keep is natural -it still has to make sense! Try and focus each page of your site around a specific small group of related keyword rather than try and get everything on one page

3) Create a Sitemap

Remember spiders/ bots follow links. A Sitemap can help by telling them what links you want them to see on your site – links to pages they might might miss otherwise. Whilst on the subject of links, try and structure your site so it’s not too deep. Ideally any page should be no more than three clicks from the homepage. Google Webmaster Tools , helps you to create sitemaps and submit them to Google. And it’s f ree!

4) Create Backlinks from relevant sites with Strong Anchor Text. Link Deep

Eg I might use a hyperlink like this for my web design site. Cheap Web Design to help increase the ranking for the phrase cheap web design. Notice that I didn’t link to my home page but to a page specifically written about cheap web design. This is called deep linking.

The rule here is send the link to the most relevant page ( might not be the home page) using keyword rich anchor text.

5) Submit Your Site to Search Engines

Some people miss this step saying the search engines will find you anyway. This might be true. But it doesn’t do any harm to let them know you exist anyway.

6) Outsource it (okay I know I said 5 steps.. this one’s a bonus!)

Summary

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(This is not from me but from Perry Marshall – it’s well worth a read.)

When Jack Born called me on the phone one day after his morning run and sketched out the triangle you’re about to see, I instantly fell in love with it.

This is the e=mc² of marketing.

The Tactical Triangle always takes you where you need to go, and the 80/20 in the center always focuses you on the points of highest effectiveness.

I’m going to show it to you.

Before I do, I need to warn you that most people, even the very sharpest students, will not instantly “get it.” It may not be at all apparent how many things you can do with this tool. But as you begin to use it, you’ll find it’s one of the most powerful tools anyone’s ever given you:

read more here …

Enjoy

Richard Law
Web Design Specialist

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Link building can be very time consuming but like it or not, it is also an unavoidable part of any internet marketing strategy. Here’s some tips to help speed things up for you and make the whole process easier…

1. Know What Keywords to target 

From your keyword research have your top 5 or 10 keyword phrases ready to use these in your link anchor text
(you have done keyword research, right? If not stop link building and go back a step or 3 … do your keyword research! Here’s a nifty free tool to help http://www.wordstream.com/keywords/  ) 
 
So for example I would use Web Design Australia as a link rather than (say) the straight URL http://www.webdesignspecialist.com.au  or even the company name Web Design Specialist. Yes you want to rank well for your company name but unless its something that you know people are going to search for you’re better off concentrate on the keyphrases instead.

2. Focus your link building strategy

There’s a LOT of ways to build back-links.  Some of these are 

1. BLOGGING. (my favourite)
2. directory submission (Dmoz, Yahoo Directory, etc)
3.  article submission (ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com) 
4.  press releases (PRWeb.com) 
5.  social media outlets (FaceBook, Linked In)
6. bookmarking sites (Digg, Reddit, Furl) 
7. Forums (niche forums) 

 If time is limited (isn’t it always!) pick one or two from the list and really work at it. Focus on those 1 or 2 areas and build up an expertise in them.  (For me I find blogging gives the best return ). The key it to focus… otherwise you can spread yourself too thin and get no appreciable results from anything

3. Find Authority sites and get links from them.

Most Search engines see links back to your site as a “vote of confidence” for your site. But that’s not the whole story – if only it were !

The more relevant and authoritative the site providing the link back is, the more weight is given to the link.  
 
It’s not always easy (or cheap) try and get links from sites that are in a related or similar field to yours. But  it’s well worth it. It can count as valuable as a dozen or a hundred “not related” links.

Example of what is a “relevant link” : for me as a web designer a paid link in a web designer directory or a link from a hosting company would be valuable. To an online clothing store these links would be considerably less valuable ( since they are not thematically linked to the clothing industry)

4. Don’t waste your time in reciprocal linking

 Now this might be a bit controversial for some but unless there’s a real compelling reason to “exchange links” it’s generally not worth the effort. Especially where the same effort could gain you a more valuable one-way link!
 
 I am not saying don’t exchange links.  Just don’t expend a lot of effort in doing so.

If you don’t have the time -  outsource it

At this time link building is a necessary requirement for most sites. If you don’t have the time to do it then you should consider getting someone else to do it for you.  Just be sure your outsourcer is following the 1-4 steps above and you’ll be fine. 

I include link building as part of the search engine opimisation service I offer.  So you could start here if you like
 
 Richard Law
Web Design Specialist
 For website design you can afford.

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Once you have researched the best keywords for your adwords campaign you have yet another choice. How to match them.

There are three ways to do this in adwords… and they all give different results

 Keyword Match Types

- Broad match: gives google most freedom to display your ad if your Keyword is anywhere in the Search term, for example: if you were using the broad match keyword “Web design”, your ad may show when a person searches for either or both keywords, or something that Google believes is similar.

That last bit is important “something that Google believes is similar”. Sometimes what google believes is similar to web design (in this example) is nothing like it!! Usually they’re not too bad.

So my search term will show for things as diverse as “best children boutique web design” and “web template download” and “top end web” whatever that means

The point is it will get lost of exposure sure, but not very focused. Kind of like shotgun marketing.. lots of impressions.. not too narrowly aimed directly at the target audience though

- Phrase match: allows you to displays your ad only if Search Term and Keyword are in the same order. Here is an quick example of how phrase match works: if you are targeting “web design” on phrase match it will hit for keywords including the phrase “web design”, which would include the keywords “best web design”, “cheap web design”, “web design Australia”, and so on

Therefore, as long as those 2 main keywords are included in the search your ad will show. Using Phrase Match but a bit more focused than broad Match. Which should mean better targetted (more qualified)

- Exact match: allows you to displays your ad only if the Search Term exactly matches with the Keyword. Example [web design]will only show if someone types in web design. Not if they type in cheap web design. This is the most focused level

How do you use this?

If you are starting out you could make a few ad groups and run them with just one broad keyphrase and generate some traffic and click through. Keep an eye on your spend though as it can get out of control fast

Then look at which phrases people are actually clicking on (you can do that in your adwords admin area) and then create an identical new ad group for that search term. Only use the phrase match this time. Or if its good the exact phrase. As before 1 adgroup and 1 search / keyword phrase 

Continue to refine it down that way until you have a list of highly focussed search terms. Son in my example above I might find “low cost web design company” to be the best converting phrase.  I’d have it as an exact phrase in an adgroup by itself…

Why? Well its a good converting keyphrase.

It might not get a lot of traffic but if 1 in 5 impressions leads to a clickthrough – who cares. Especiallly is that click through is from someone genuinely looking for what you have to offer. At the end of this day this is trully the only thing that matters…

Hope that quick tip helps

Richard Law
Web Design Australia

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I just got this email from Perry Marshall: it’s a fully revised and updated copy of his famous “Definitive Guide to Google AdWords” book.

I’ll be getting a copy today. If you are at all serious about making your adwords work for you rather than just for google (they make a lot of money from it) then you need to hear what this guy has to say. No-one does adwords better.

Anyway here’s what he says

=========== 

Richard, 

I have exhaustively re-written the Definitive Guide to Google AdWords for 2010.

This was urgently needed because of the INTENSITY of competition on AdWords right now. (Have you been feeling it?)

You’ll find hard, cold, documented PROOF of increased AdWords competition on this page, just two paragraphs in.

You need to know what you’re up against. And on this page I also show you how to prevail against even the thickest rivalry.

* Understand this:

The key to success in Google AdWords is NOT brute force! It’s FINESSE.

Even if you’re competing with 500 other advertisers, the way you win this game is through REFINEMENTS.

Six years ago, adding quotes and brackets to your keywords was enough to do the job. Obviously that’s not enough anymore.

However if you go through the chapters of the 2010 Definitive Guide and implement them one by one, you’ll steadily surpass even the most determined competitors.

Again, you do NOT succeed on AdWords through brute force. You do it with calm, clear headed strategy. It is immensely gratifying to feel calm, calculated and deliberate even as everyone else is frantic.

We also developed six specialized AdWords modules for different industries. Each of these provides you with an overall STRATEGY and economic model that ensures you derive maximum punch from every click. You make confident moves free of doubt and fear.

The modules are:

-Affiliate Marketing
-Getting Started Online
-Information Marketing
-Marketing in the UK
-Copywriting
-Google’s Content Network

Choose one or more modules as you desire.

* Now I invite you to take my 2 hour challenge:

Regardless of your level of AdWords proficiency, open your Google account, page through the 2010 Definitive Guide and start implementing. Make it your exclusive focus for 2 hours.

*If your 2 hour investment doesn’t return to you in 1-2 weeks through cost savings or increased sales, let us know and we’ll give you a full and courteous refund.*

I am intensely interested in your success. I understand that you are being assaulted with sales pitches from every direction, but I sincerely believe that *this* is the finest single investment you can make in your Internet education.

It’s inexpensive, it gets you QUALITY traffic and IMMEDIATE results: Go and have a look here Definitive Guide to Google AdWords

* Are you on the fence?

If so, let me ask you a question:

Is there any knowledge or direct marketing advice that you
have ever received from anyone else, who has given you more bang for the buck than what I’ve taught you about AdWords? Can you name even 1 or 2 sources with a better Return On Investment (both time and money) than my materials?

If the answer is “no” or “not really”, then I ask for your trust this time.

You will not be disappointed.

Definitive Guide to Google AdWords

To your success,

Perry Marshall

—————–

Yes I have replaced his links with my affiliate link. I figure that this guide will pretty much kill anyone wanting me to run their adword campaigns for them so I might as well get a little something back.

Do have a look at the Definitive Guide to Google AdWords page and get the book.  I use adwords as part of an overall strategy – as one of three of four really good traffic sources. I’d suggest you do too.

Richard Law
Web Design Specialist
Tel; 0409148366 / 03 9005 0943
http://www.webdesignspecialist.com.au
for web design you can afford

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A few weeks ago I joined a mailing list for a very successful marketing duo
Or at least according to their own claims there are successful – and I have no reason to disbelieve them. I think they make a lot of money. So in that respect they are what they say they are.

Anyway they were offering a very good and inexpensive deal on an Autoresponder course on DVD.

Actually it was free and all I needed to do was pay the shipping.
I even clicked through to the order form a few times …

BUT NEVER ORDERED.

Over the time this promotional offer was running I got quite a few emails from them and each one made me less inclined to buy. You’ll see why later.

The promotion is now over and I didn’t buy. Even though I have a need that matches what they offer exactly
(I needed some help and direction with setting up my own autoresponder course)

Then a week or so back I got an email with a link to a post by Perry Marshall.

He too had an autoresponder course.

Only this wasn’t free – it was just under US$100 and really seemed to be not much more than a simple PDF doc with some extras thrown in.

Guess what – I bought it.
And it’s very very good. It was exactly what I needed without the fluff.

This made me ask myself though

Why did I buy the more expensive one over the the “free” offering?

What stops people from buying

So why did I buy the more expensive one over the free one?
The free one promised more than the one I bought – apparently
I was in the frame of mind to buy as well.
So I was a “hot prospect”

There’s a great book – now out of print unfortunately – by Les Dane. It’s called Big League Sales.  In it Les describes how sales resistance is the armour – the brick overcoat – a prospect wears.
They want to buy and the job of  the salesperson is to discover how to get through the armour first and then to spur them into action.

It’s worth getting off Amazon or Ebay if you see it.

Les knows why I didn’t buy….

Because I didn’t trust them enough.

Why I didnt buy the free offer.

It added to my sales resistance rather than removed it.

1. Firstly there was presentation of the first (free) offer. It was one of those long, sales letter sites. Complete with the video, testimonials, bullet points and all the other bits the formula for a sales letter says you must have.

You can see hundreds of them on the web today. Not a good start. Already I am subconsiously associating them with every over-hyped product I have ever seen. Regardless of how good their product is

2. And to add to this it was written with the obligatory very over-the-top hype sales pitch. Yes got me the first time I read it. I almost bought on impulse. 

Almost

Left me cold the second time through though

3. Then the follow up emails encouraging me to take up the offer were more of the same. Hype about how this is the answer to very single problem in my business right now and I should be sitting on a beach sipping champagne .. yada yada yada

I unsubscribed and never bought a thing from them. Probably never will.

Maybe they are the real deal and I am sure they will make thousand of dollars.

And maybe I am being cynical but I have found those who employ that type of hype and sales letter and who promise the world NEVER DELIVER.
I’ve tried enough to be fairly sure of this.

You could be excused in thinking it was their “same here” sales copy that killed it for me.

Yes… but no.

There’s more to it than that

Why I did buy

Now Perry’s offer however was different.

He had a sales letter too. But it was part of his blog.  Written in a very informative style. Appealing to a different buyer – not after an impulse buy as much as an informed decision.

Just reading the sales letter by itself and doing nothing gave me valuable data I could use.

And I didnt but straight away on impulse. I left it for 24 hours came back and re-read the sales page

And bought

Why?

Well sales technique aside there is one thing Perry has that the others didnt. And they failed to establish …

TRUST

People buy from the people they trust

Whilst I don’t always agree with what Perry says I do trust him. Enough to invest a hundred dollars anyway.
And that trust was enough to overcome my sales resistance and pay for a course even when I was offered (and declined) a similar one for free.

Trust is the commodity that allows one to transform  an interest into to an action (sale)

Do your visitor’s trust you

I asked myself the very same question when I realised this. Do my visitors trust me?

The answer is – sometimes.

They trust me to the degree that I am real to them

See they can’t see or touch a product on the internet.
And I offer a service – web design – so that even more esoteric.

So really, why should they trust me?

Currently I demonstrate trust as a web designer by showing people what I have done for others – my portfolio.

Not enough.

I will re-enforce this by adding in testimonials

But really what makes one real and trustworthy is communication. And valuable communication – not a bunch of hyped-up sales letters.

So my plan is my new autoreponder course (thanks to Perry’s guidance) which will build that communication, make me real to people and whan their interest matches what I offer I will have established enough trust for them to want to do business with me.

Would you trust yourself?

So have a look at you own website.

Pretend you’re someone else

Would you trust it enough to do what it says ie to buy or inquire or whatever the call to action is? (you do have a call to action, right?)

If the answer is (like me) “sometimes” then you’re looking at a surefire way to improve your site right there. Get started!

Here’s some ideas off the top of my head.

• Start a blog and offer help without a catch or buyline
• Start an autoresponder course offering useful data
• Show people how you have helped others through case studies or testimonials
• Allow reviews of your products
• Have as many pictures as required. User guides and more.

If you need some help contact me- I might just have an email course that will help you.

Richard Law
Business Web Design
For website design you can afford.

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Many years ago I made a (small) amount of money advertising products for sale as an affiliate of clickbank.  But haven’t been all that active for 24 months or longer. Until now.. I changed my mind last week.

See I dropped clickbank as an income stream as it was distracting me from my main business of web design. 

The time required to effectively promote quality items well meant it always got left to last and more often than not, never got done.

Until I discovered this…   (read on)

What is Clickbank

If you don’t know what I mean by clickbank basically it’s a big online directory. Selling (mainly) web based products like software, and services like SEO and a whole lot more.

As a vendor you can go and advertise your product or service for sale.

How clickbank works is it allows others to easily promote any service or product listed on clickbank as an affiliate. If they direct someone to your site through a special affiliate link provided to them and a sale occurs they get a commission.

And the nice thing is clickbank handles it all.

So vendors can build up an army of affiliates. And people can sign up as affiliates for free and make some commission money

You can find out more about clickbank here – and sign up as an affiliate for free.

I have been on both sides of this fence and it’s the affiliate side of things I am looking at here

Why I stopped being a clickbank affiliate

Now I’ll be honest I found some of the stuff in there is just plain shonky and I couldn’t keep track of what was good and what wasn’t.

For some people whodon’t care and  are just after the commission that doesn’t even factor.

For me it did. I wont sell or promote substandard products. 

That plus writing a good review or email or blog post and advertising it all… well it was just taking too long.  Not worth the few hundred dollars I was making in return.

Why I started being a clickbank affiliate – again

There are very few online marketers I get emails from that I actually read.

Robert Puddy is one of them. He’s got some good stuff on offer and I have had good dealings with him in the past.

So I trust him.
(A very valuable commodity – trust! Hard to earn, easy to lose.)

Anyway he says to me checkout Clickbank Pirate.

Despite the very silly name I do

Clickbank Pirate

It actually looks quite good!!

It does 95% of the work that caused me to drop out of clickbank in the first place.  Emails, posts, articles, tweets even –  are already built and prepared for you for quality selected clickbank products.

So despite my reservations I’ve decided to try it for a month or two and see if it works as well as it claims.

Even if I make a few hundred dollars extra per month for a few hours effort I don’t mind. If I make more than that I’ll cut back on the webdesign in favour of this!!! Maybe.

I’ll post about it again in 2 months or so….

In the meantime if you want to have a look at this clickbank video  (link removed- see below in the Update Section) they have put together and decide for yourself

Then you can register to claim your free copy of the Clickbank Treasure Map report.

Here’s that video link again

link removed – see update below —

Tell me what you think…
Regards,
Richard Law
Business Web Design you can afford

UPDATE:  two weeks on

I know I said I’d give it 2 months. …

But I guess I should have listened to my first instinct which was to delete the offer and keep on doing what I was doing.

For me ClickBank Pirate was a waste of time.  Others may find differently

It’s not a bad system – where it falls down is the products you end up promoting are all MMO (money making opportunities) and not really very good ones I have to say. At least not ones I’d buy in to. I think it’s important an affiliate has some belief in what he is selling.

The other thing is the key to any marketing system is get the traffic therel amount of traffic and QUALITY of traffic determines the lions share of anyone’s success. So though their system is actually quite good – the traffic I delivered obviously wasn’t.

With CB Pirate I used their twitter posts,  wrote a blog post (this one), submitted an article orArticleEzines and submitted about 10 emails to a safelist I occassionally use.

So were dozens if not hundreds of other people. Not exectly a unique marketing message then is it… hence the traffic not being the most qualified  prospects

The stats: Two weeks on I have just 7 vistors per clickbank and no sales.

Plus my ezine article was declined for having an affiliate link in it !

I’ll be cancelling my CB Pirate subscription now. It didnt work for the limited time I have to put into it. It might work for you. Maybe. Perhaps….

I can’t help thinking though, that if you can generate enough quality traffic that wants to buy that kind of MMO offer  – then you dont need CB Pirate. Your almost home and dry already!!

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I’m a sceptical kind of guy at time. I have been around long enough to see
the “best search engine optimisation” fads come and go.

One strategy I have seen consistently recommended by some fairly well
respected SEO experts is article writing. I always mentally made a “to be
investigated”  note whenever I read about the power or submitting an article to the many article directories around

How does Article Marketing Work?

Basically it goes like this.

1. you write an informative and hopefully interesting article

2. You submit it to one or more of the many article directories

3. They review and approve it and publish it

4. people are now free to copy that article (Exactly without changes) into their website or blog

So what’s the point of that? 

 Twofold

A/ Write well enough and often enough and you become the opinion leader in your niche.  Now that’s good publicity !

b/ Plus you make sure you have links embedded in the article or in the author information box. Someone uses your article in their site and this gives you a one way link back to your site just like that.

This means traffic directly from the link and also it can help boost your rankings in the search engines - depending on the referring site.

Oh and most article directories are free. There is no cost to post to them.

Anyway I never bothered as I never considered myself much of a writer

My article marketing experiment

As soon as I started this blog I changed my mind. Not saying I am great but I
can write an article. And make it interesting (some of the times)

So with that in mind I revisited Article marketing. Started modestly. Took my first blog post, cleaned it up and fixed the grammar a bit and submitted it to EzineArticle.com

Being a free member it takes 7-10 days to get the article reviewed and
posted.

And much to my amazement it was approved.  Here it is here. It’s called

“Websites – Are They Art Or Ads?” - 

http://EzineArticles.com/?id=2643451

Search Engine Optimisation

Has it helped my search engine ranking or traffic?

Too early to say.

One thing I have learnt though is it’s not as hard as I thought.

Now let’s see if I can do it for of my web design customers who need some SEO work done on their sites!!

Richard Law
Web Design and Affordable SEO

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I used email marketing years ago. Built up a list of a few thouand people  and managed to get myself banned from a well known autoresponder service for spamming!  I was of course doing it wrong.

What is an autoresponder

An autoresponder is an automatic email sending program. It can be as simple as an instant response to an email (usually saying thanks for the email) to scheduling a complex series of emails spanning a year or longer

The value of an autoresponder is it allows you to speak with someone more than once.

Once is all you will probably all you will get from a visit to your webpage. But if someone’s gives you permission to email them then you can talk to them for months or years – at little cost -  and maybe one day win their business. Something a single visit to a website cannot do.

Austoresponders and email marketing

I have used email / autoresponder marketing in the past. With mixed results.

I even bought a series of 52 email lessons that I loaded up into an well known hosted/ online autoresponder service I had set up.

Then through various marketing methods built a list of a few thousand people.

The autoreponder was loaded up with the email lessons and it happily went about sending the subscribers a message every week. All I had to do was throw in a few affiliate links and an odd product push and I was all set.

Sounds great.

It wasn’t.

The problem was I wasn’t communicating. 

Just because it’s all automatic doesn’t mean it has to be robotic. Or rote. And the messages I was sending were not from me. Not really.

Communication comes from a person and is directed to another person. I missed that boat altogether!

Really I was wasting my time and the time of the people who received my emails

( Then I made the mistake of buying some double opt-in leads and got kicked off of  the autoreponder service for spamming!!  And I guess I was as the emails were not personal contacts.  Don’t make this mistake!
But that’s another story.. )

Email Marketing and blogging

That was 2 – 3  years ago. I hadn’t bothered much with email marketing except to my own customers since then.

But of late marketing expert Perry Marshall has been banging on about the value of auto responder email marketing at some length. And it got me to take a fresh look.

I notice many of the emails I get from him contain just a short excerpt and direct me to his blog to read the rest. Then I realised many of the marketing guys I get emails from do the same thing.

What a great idea

You see a blog post can be much longer and better structured than an email. People can comment on a blog post. And google can list a blog post and even rank it well

And for some reason I find it easier to post a blog than write an soulless marketing email.

So I am now setting up a new improved email strategy.

The first thing I had to look at was HOW to set it up.

Autoresponder Software v/s Hosted Solution

Do a search an google and the autoresponder service of choice is Aweber. It get great reviews all over the place.

That might be because they are the best.

It might be because they have a good affiliate program (excuse my cynicism).

My problem is I already have a mailing list of clients I email on an ( irregular ) basis and to use this list in Aweber would require each one of them getting a subscribe confirmation email. So they can opt in to the list.

Not really appropriate and not very professional since I have been working with some of them for 4 years or more.

I have opted instead for a server based software. I guess is the web designer/ developer in me. I’d much rather have it on my server under my control.

The program I have chosen allows me to throttle my my email volume to 200 an hour so as not to overload an mailservers, and I don’t see this as being a problem for quite some time. 200 an hour = 4800  a day = 33600 a week.  And no monthly fees

I may need to revise this choice later but it’s working fine for now whilst my list is small.

What to say

Well that’s the fun part. I have written a short mini course to encourage people to give me their email addresses in the fisrt place. Then It will be emails that refer to these blog posts

How well will this work? … I’ll keep you posted.

I don’t know yet

Helpful comments are welcome.

Regards
 
Richard Law
Web Design Specialist
Tel; 0409148366 / 03 9005 0943
http://www.webdesignspecialist.com.au

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Hi

Just a quick post.

Brad Callen is one of those SEO experts you see often mentioned and quoted in forums, blogs and throughout the internet

I am on his mailing list and he has sent me a SEO book that I can give away. Apparently it’s valued at $80.

I have had a read through it and it looks to me like it was maybe written a year or two ago. So some of the data is a bit “old” .

For example it gives examples of keywords research using overture rather than google keyword tool. Plus Brad, being the marketing guru he is,  book throws in plenty of references to his SEO Elite software. So basically there’s a bit of a sales pitch woven into this book as well.

Having said that it’s pretty good. Actually it’s very good.

 The basics of SEO haven’t changed too much since it was written and this book certainly covers them well. Plus I have used SEO elite in the past and it’s actually quite good. So if you need SEO software then this is worth looking at.

Plus it’s free !

I’ll be upfront though, if you do buy SEO Elite through a link in this PDF/ Ebook I get a commission. That’s not why I am giving it away. But I thought I’d be open about just incase you thought it was.

So download the SEO ebook SEO Made Easy

And if you do buy the software make sure you go through the many video tutorials so you know what to do with it

regards

Richard Law
Affordable Web Design

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